obliged to make it. We descended,
therefore, into the channel of the river, and unloaded the animals and
boat-carriage. In order to facilitate the ascent of the right bank, some
of the men were directed to cut steps up it. I was amused to see the
natives voluntarily assist them; and was surprised when they took up bags
of flour weighing 100 pounds each, and carried them across the river. We
were not long in getting the whole of the stores over. The boat was then
hoisted on the shoulders of the strongest, and deposited on the top of the
opposite bank; and ropes being afterwards attached to the carriage, it was
soon drawn up to a place of safety. The natives worked as hard as our own
people, and that, too, with a cheerfulness for which I was altogether
unprepared, and which is certainly foreign to their natural habits. We
pitched our tents as soon as we had effected the passage of the river;
after which, the men went to bathe, and blacks and whites were mingled
promiscuously in the stream. I did not observe that the former differed in
any respect from the natives who frequent the located districts. They were
generally clean limbed and stout, and some of the young men had pleasing
intelligent countenances. They lacerate their bodies, inflicting deep
wounds to raise the flesh, and extract the front teeth like the Bathurst
tribes; and their weapons are precisely the same. They are certainly a
merry people, and sit up laughing and talking more than half the night.

BAROMETER BROKEN.

During the removal of the stores my barometer was unfortunately broken,
and I had often, in the subsequent stages of the journey, occasion to
regret the accident. I apprehend that the corks in the instrument, placed
to steady the tube, are too distant from each other in most cases; and
indeed I fear that barometers as at present constructed, will seldom be
carried with safety in overland expeditions.

DESERTED BY THE NATIVES.

Nine only of the natives accompanied us on the morning succeeding the day
in which we crossed the river. Botheri was, however, at the head of them;
and, as we journeyed along, he informed me that he had been promised a
wife on his return from acting as our guide, by the chief of the last
tribe. The excessive heat of the weather obliged us to shorten our
journey, and we encamped about noon in some scrub after having traversed a
level country for about eleven miles.

Several considerable plains were noticed to our right,